excerpt from a book i’ll never write / the heartbreaker meets the heartbreak

It had come the time when Alex had to say goodbye to him—something she had been dreading for weeks. It almost didn’t feel real, the sequence of events that’s to come that night. She had always pictured herself as unlovable. Designed to be alone for the rest of her life. It was never “woe is me, I’m going to be single forever”, either. She knows her worth and she knows that she’s not the kind of girl people fall in love with. Plain and simple. Her plan for the future was to just gather a bunch of people who had the same vision. Like “Friends”, but minus the Ross and Rachel boring love fest. The plan was to stick with roommates, forget that cheesy “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” bullshit, die alone. A happy, independent, superwoman death. Paradise.

But there they were, sitting on the empty and lifeless bridge, doing all of that romantic couple shit that she promised herself she wouldn’t follow. The pure black of the night crept upon them, interrupting their final day spent together. The eerie darkness of that night would never escape her memory; the pitch-black curtain draped over the sky, and the twisted, warped shapes of the stars co-existing alongside the two. Castor stared up at the sky and studied the silver glow of the moon. “Do you think we’re fooling ourselves?” she asked, drawing her finger down the line of his jaw. He smiled at her with love so intense it warmed her soul like a fireplace on a cold winter’s night. “Thinking this could last?” she added. He laughed, replying “I think we’re fooling the whole damn world.”

She laughed along with him softly and pulled her hand away from his face, placing her palms flat against the hard concrete, leaning into them as she drew her attention back to the moving river. “Why do you have to leave and go off to a college that’s 42 hours away?” she spoke, her voice and expression now deadpan. With no response from the boy, all that was shared was the kicking of their dangling legs back and forth in unison. Clearly annoyed at his disengagement, she brushed the pebbles off her hands against the worn denim of her jeans, propelling herself up from the ground. “Yeah, I guess it’s safe to say that this thing between us will never work, so I should just give up this day dream now and that way I’ll be able to get over you quicker,” she grumbled, heading towards the bike she left on the tough, reedy grass.

“Alex,” Castor interjected, getting up and turning his still body towards her. “Alex, I will text you! We can call, there’s FaceTime, I’m-I’m coming home to visit—“ he listed, before being cut off abruptly. “Yeah, for like winter break and that’s it! Why does any of this matter if we agreed on nothing being ‘exclusive?’ I mean, why don’t we just call it off right now instead of wasting our time on this?”

“Seriously? Alex, I told you, why don’t you just apply for Princeton and then we can go there together next year and-“ Castor needled, stirring the pot. This had been something he’d try to convince Alex into doing many times before, but being a year below him and hardly knowing what she really wants to do with her life, it frustrates her beyond belief. The idea of him going to a pristine university across the country and her falling in love with someone so far out of reach couldn’t be more aggravating to someone so stubborn like her. “That’s not how this works, Castor!” She snapped, swiveling around to face him. “You’re going to go off and be busy at college doing your own thing and fall in love with some beautiful and intelligent girl and never want to come home! it it, you hate it here.”

“Okay, well, so do you! You can’t tell me this place and the people here don’t get stodgy and all in your face—I feel like I’m repeating a continues cycle, like I’m... like I’m on a loop or something! It’s hell!”

Hell. Those final words struck her like a chord. Having spent her final Summer as a high school student and his before he goes off to college, that to her sounded more like ‘spending everyday with you has been unbearable.’ She took a step backwards, her eyes starting to well up with tears.

“Alex, I didn’t mean you, I just meant...” he stammered, struggling to find his words.

“We want different things.”

“I know.”

So many things crossed her mind and a flood of emotions took over. So many thoughts, so little time. Why did they keep this lingering on for so long if it inevitably would have to come to an end? Why do they have to be a year apart? Why had they met? Why didn’t they have this conversation before? Why now?

In the moment, that flash of anger protected her from the pain. If she were to relive it, she would only try to summon more strength, but she failed herself, and him too.

There came that aching and unpleasant feeling in her jaw—the tension from locking it to prevent from crying. She refused to look away, even as her lips ed in on the pain party, trembling, and her shoulders heaved with emotion, unwilling to back down. As much as she tried to hold it in, an involuntary whimper escaped her lips, giving away her emotions and presenting them on a silver platter. Following that, as if it couldn’t get any worse, a lone tear traced down her cheek, and just like that, the floodgates opened. Beads of water started falling down one after another, without a sign of stopping.

Her body looked calm compared to how tangled her mind was. The cries looked emotionless; like they had been forced. They weren’t forced, though. They were anything but forced. She hasn’t gone through a level of hurt like this, especially since she doesn’t allow herself to associate with this feeling of grief—she will avoid it at all costs.

Collecting herself with lots of sniffles, she knew she had to have the last word, regardless of how hard that may be. As their time to say their goodbyes came nearer, what 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅’𝒗𝒆 played out was that she would take the best of him and he would take the best of her. Candidly, they learned from one another and grew—yes, their futures lying on different paths brings a sadness, but they met and their love truly brings warm joy in the memories. So how this all 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 end, is she recalls that she loved him and know she holds him above others still. That, unfortunately, can’t happen with someone like Alex. Everything must come to an end. 𝑰𝒕 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈.

“When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?”

As reality set in for Alex and Castor, you could almost see the heart of their relationship split into two halves. Two people going their separate ways. No longer one, no longer together. Tears stream down both their faces, as they realize that they were just not meant for each other. Each tear that falls to the ground is like each good memory they spent together disappearing. Those tears and those memories went from being some of the best in the world to being the most painful.

Sometimes, you replay the events in your head and wonder if there were any right words to say. You’ve gone through a constant cycle of feeling so alone until you had that one person who could cure that empty feeling in your heart. You hope that person knows that they’ll always have a special place in your heart regardless, but it’s likely that it doesn’t mean anything to them because their heart is sitting in the corner of the room where you left it. You look back and want to cry in frustration because you know you are all to blame.